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Is your CEO about to become a father? If you’re a woman employee
at his company, you should hope the newborn is a girl.

Professors Michael Dahl of Aalborg
University in Denmark, Cristian Dezsö
of the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of
Business, and David Gaddis Ross at
Columbia Business School recently completed a
study of the gender pay gap in the Danish workplace.

Worldwide, women earn an estimated 9 to 18 percent less than men
with the same job descriptions and equivalent education and
experience. Denmark, despite being considered a relatively
egalitarian society, still has a wage gap. It’s also the ideal
place to study wage gaps, because the government keeps very
thorough demographic statistics on its population and on every
Danish company.

Shortly after the CEOs had daughters, the women’s wages
at their companies began to rise relative to men’s,
shrinking the wage gap.

First daughters who were also firstborns had the
biggest effect. These girls helped close the wage gap
at their dads’ companies by three percent.

First daughters who were not firstborns still helped
narrow the wage gap. At companies headed by their
dads, the wage gap closed by 0.8 percent.

Most of the gains in wages were found at smaller
firms, or those with 10-50 employees. (Firms with
fewer than 10 employees were not included in the study) The
researchers believe this is because at smaller companies, CEOs
have more influence over the pay of individual employees. The
birth of any daughter at these firms shrunk the wage gap by
about 1%.

Highly-educated women employees benefited more than
others. Since most CEOs are highly educated, it makes
sense that they would see well-educated women as potential
proxies for their own grown daughters. Among college educated
women, the birth of a daughter (firstborn or not) closed the
gender gap by about 1%.

Do you believe there is a wage gap at your company? If so, how
important do you think the CEO’s outlook could be in closing it?